Many Things and Few

Rather than a one-subject blog, this week's entry will be a few shorter thoughts on things, generally. Regular drivel to continue next week.

Witness Temper Tampering and TV Addicts

I'm continually perturbed by the fact that the wealthy get away with crimes that lesser folk (like me) would get tossed in a bottomless hole for. Trump is using his own social media platform to tamper with witnesses in his ongoing 2020 election charges and indictments as well as a place to lose his everloving temper about how unfairly he's being treated for trying to steal an election and actually stealing a warehouse full of state secrets (not to mention inciting a riot on federal grounds by a crowd of goons rabid to hang out then vice president by his neck for not helping). SAD!

 

Nothing, yet, has been done to stop this, and because it's his platform, no one will unplug the boss. However, even a mob don would be tossed away until trial for this, so why haven't they pitched Donny into a dark hole? Witness tampering is a federal felony and one that holds heavy consequences. The reason that Don has gotten this far is because he has long avoided consequences and accountability. The other shoe is dropping, now. How about we go the whole way and make an example?

Why? Because he's running for president. It's that simple. He could garner the Republican nomination and until he’s tried (and perhaps even after) it would behoove us to throw all the books at him. That way, if another wannabe comes along (I'm looking at you Florida Man Ron) they don't try this crap again.

The rest of the charges can come and go as the Law deals with them, and hopefully Donny will have his day in court and face the needed accountability as the various juries decide; lord knows there's plenty of evidence mounting against him in this "witch hunt". 

Threatening people is not okay. If he is more sternly dealt with it may make his beloved goons and the TV channels that love him a little more cautious to so overtly support him, but I doubt it. I long for the days when Donny is nothing more than a terrible memory.

Well, I can dream. 

Also, I think I've had enough of whataboutism. Most people who love Donny will not face these substantial charges head on with anything approaching intellectual honesty. Instead they say "what about Biden?" "Something something laptop". They still support a slimeball, even after he tried to wreck our democracy to stay in power and they're worried about a laptop? The ability of the average human to delude themselves is monumental.

As I tell my venerable father nearly every week, we all need to turn off those TV cable news channels and drop most social media platforms. Stop letting paid pundits and trolls tell us how to think. Switch off the TV and switch on the critical faculties. To paraphrase James Carville in 1992, "It's the democracy, stupid".

Beach Goer's Woes

Micki and I spent a restorative and relaxing (and romantic) weekend away at the beach recently. Just the two of us, just our own agreed-upon plans. We had a wonderful time (we always do) and sitting at the beach is about as relaxing as it can get while still maintaining consciousness. But we're used to off-season beachgoing and because Micki teaches school, going mid-Fall semester just wouldn't work this year.

So, we scheduled our getaway for late August—after her summer semester master's degree courses ended, but before she must begin returning to the schoolhouse—and though we got to the beach early each day and had snacks aplenty and beat the crowds, the number of people that eventually showed up and the high temps made it challenging to stay out there.

I don't love crowds at the best of times and working as closely as I do with the public professionally, my tolerance for other humans is usually at low ebb.

Yet, claiming our site early, and having our Shibumi unfurled before others arrived, and gazing at the ocean (and the other non-sea mammals, too) added an air of anonymity and primacy—we were there first! Even so, it was hot. Each day, as the temperature climbed with the sun, we felt caught between staying and getting as much beach time as possible and fending off heat stroke. Nevertheless the little place we stayed at is far enough away from the crowds and secluded enough to make returning there for the evenings quite rejuvenating and peaceful. Having a place to ourselves with no adult children is a wonderfully freeing experience (no offense to those adult children, of course!)

 

Still, in future, give me an October beach week any day (or month). Fewer humans around and way easier temps to deal with is much to be preferred.

Japanese Convulsions

While sitting in my little folding chair in the sand, I finished Rising Sun, by Michael Crichton. The book is an early nineties murder mystery set in the odd realm of Japanese business-is-war philosophy in an era when there was serious fear that the little island empire was taking over America yet again, this time financially. Crichton's book is a wonderful reminder that we only see history from the present and not from the perspective of history itself. Japan did not take over the American economy, as expected, but wound up running ashore on the rocks of their own sense of impervious business Bushido.

 

A worthy read, but I recommend reading it with an awareness that it is now quite dated.

The fascinating part is that, since Commodore Perry opened the island to the world economies in 1853, Japan has had three cultural convulsions; their adaptation to larger 19th century imperialism, their Pacific War in the 1940s and their financial repercussions in the late 1990s. It will be interesting to see how they proceed in the new millennium.

Outdoor Showers 

The one amazing thing about the place we stayed at the beach is the outdoor shower. Stepping out of the back door of the screened-in porch and down some steps, there is a boardwalk that leads to a small cubicle situated by the back corner of the house. Inside, a built-in bench and a few handy hooks and shower caddies belay the simplicity of a nozzle and minimal cold and hot water knobs. 

Being outside while bathing is only daunting based on how close you are to anyone in the immediate proximity. You don’t want the neighbors keeping tabs or being able to overhear your ablutions or joyous chortling. Luckily our little getaway spot has plenty of space all around the shower. Plenty of barriers beyond the confines of the cubicle to make bathers feel more secure.

Sudsing up, even on a hot day in the direct sunshine (though, I suggest twilight as the best time during late summer) is gloriously cooling and refreshing. Except for having to keep my shades on, (and hoping a passing single prop airplane couldn't see my soapy exterior as it flew right over me) having an outdoor wash is so wonderfully cooling. Going back inside afterwards, stepping into lounge clothes, sitting on the screened-in porch with a cool ginger ale renders even the most sultry days tolerable.

Except for a campground shower experience in Wales in '17, the outdoor shower at our recent beach stay is my favorite washing experience. We have begun discussions about this amenity before. There’s no way at our current residence that we could make this work, sadly.  Micki and I have decided that our next home (several years off and in the mountains, not at the beach) will have an outdoor shower. I will model it after the one at this recent beach stay but with a few added conveniences. Built-in shelves for soap and shampoos, a removable nozzle for greater rinsing capacity, a wider and sturdier bench and, of course, waterproof Bluetooth speakers and a cup holder. A towel bar or two would complete the picture (and a caddy for my shades). 

I think the outdoor shower is tied for me with my love of just sitting at the beach and is a nice pairing with the outdoorsy feel of beachgoing. Sadly, the people we rented from are going up on their prices (and no longer allowing dogs) and with a year coming of many travels to visit our expanding family elsewhere in the world, we will probably not be back there again, soon.

 

Coming back to a rain locker located firmly inside is a step down for us and though I love the idea of an outdoor shower, our closeness to neighbors who can be a little too observant, definitely prevents us from rigging up a handy dandy outdoor spot, and might be enough to keep me inside for scrubbing the carcass. 

For now.

Grass grousing

For most of July, we had no rain. My grass needed mowing though, and on a particularly and unseasonably cool weekend in July, I caught up the whole property. It had been so dry that the undergrass (the part under the wetter green stuff) was already brown. For another few weeks, I didn't need to dig out my yard implements (or refill my fuel can) and I enjoyed the midsummer hiatus. Now that storms have started back in a big way, our thirsty yards have once again begun their imitation of Amazonian or Southeast Asian jungles. But now, combined with the heat indexes way up in the upper nineties to low 100s, the likelihood of me getting out there to hack back the green and growing things around the place is as slim as a strand of angel hair pasta and as fat as a Chicago deep-dish pizza. If the heat breaks and it doesn't rain, I can maybe hope to shred down the grass to tolerable levels in the next few weeks. But in the meantime, our yard may become an eyesore, because I resist the notion that the landscape's beauty surmounts the grounds keeper's health.

Gas grousing

Speaking of filling the gas can, for a while now, it has been chic among the unwashed masses to blame the current president for our gas price woes. Little stickers of Biden pointing at the LCD screen at the pump with a bubble saying "I did that" popped up all over. As if in haste to prove the world right in its criticism of Americans as dumb hicks, some mammals thought this was really taking a whack at the president they didn't vote for. I bet that the Great White Father in D.C. is really smarting from that sticker. Good one, Cletus. How often, do you reckon, Joe goes to Sheetz? 

In the meantime, I find it astonishing (bottomless yokel ignorance aside) that we actually tolerate the fuel and gas costs. We queue for miles on July 4th to get gas at $1.76⁶ the gallon, complaining that it's been since the Obama administration (shocked gasping from the peasantry) since gas was that cheap. But Junior and Billy Ray continue to fail to see that the oil companies and rampant speculation are at the root of the cost of fuel, not this or any president. Not only are the fuel companies allowed to gouge us, but so are the companies that own the pumps. I truly wish that Geriatric Joe in D.C. could do something about it, as his predecessors (since Reagan) have not done (including Donny—dry your tears, Clem). I also wish my hayseed brethren would wise up and rise up, not by putting stickers on pumps or even by posting their fuel charges on Facebook (no one uses that platform anymore, Joe Bob) but by calling their Senators and Representatives and bitching to them about it. Put a sticker on their mailboxes and big black SUVs. 

They say all politics is local, well the cost of gas is a political problem at the local and the national level, but in my state and in yours too, I think, all politics is apparently yokel.

The cost of gas is high and if we all sing out, we might be heard. But people will continue to think putting stickers on the pump is the height of cleverness and political action. I bet the companies who printed the stickers really raked in the cash for a while, too. 

Oh Jedediah, the wit.

Insurance Guilt

In July, the county government I work for changed insurance companies. We've been dealing with the transition, but as Americans we expect to pay unpleasant co-pays, because why should necessary and life-saving medicines be reasonably priced? Here in the U.S. we pride ourselves on having to choose between eating and taking our meds and keeping the lights on, right?

For years, I paid a meager but essential four dollars for an inhaler that helps with my asthma. When I ran out, recently, I tried to get a refill and the Pharmacist said that my new insurance wouldn't pay for the original puff meds. So I messaged my doctor (apparently, this is my problem) and told them to go with whatever worked.

Today, my Pharmacist called me to say my Rx was ready and that, thankfully, it was less expensive than my previous copay. I drove up there. It was zero dollars. Zero. I have never not paid for an inhaler (or any med) before. I feel guilty; sheepish. Is this how people in countries that actually care about their citizens and have national healthcare feel? It's awful. I love it. 

Add Dad

Finally, after weeks of putting in the wrong email, I’d like to add Pops (or, as he is alternately known, The Governor, Father, Daddy-o, The Old Man and (by his grandkids) Pop Pop) to my growing list of readers. Approaching his 83rd year, the aged relative stays well up on current events and is always up for a good discussion. I usually call him once a week and our conversations range from family history, to electric vehicles, to car races, to what’s going on in his neck of the woods, to what’s going on in mine, to just about everything else. Anyone who has made it this far will note that I’ve mentioned Pops above, hoping he’d get a kick out of seeing himself referred to in the (for right now) blog with the lowest number of subscribers ever.

His elder sister, my good and deserving aunt (not the one who chews glass bottles with her teeth or turns into a werewolf at the full moon), has said that she wishes I’d compile these weekly articles and essays into a book. Pops concurs. I may. I don’t know how many people would want to read a series of unconnected ramblings, but perhaps it is worth the exercise—just to see if it is doable and for the experience, if nothing else.

Pops worked for years for Metropolitan Edison Company in Reading, served in the Army (mercifully between any significant conflicts) has been a volunteer fireman, a fire policeman (someone who directs traffic to let firetrucks and EMS vehicles into the area of a conflagration) a school bus driver, and sits on the fire company board. He originally wanted to be a history teacher and has kept an eye on that area of world events his whole life. I credit his love of history with my own fascination. Most days, Pops enjoys a much-deserved life of relative leisure (though he still does his own cleaning and chores except most of the grounds keeping) with his best pal, the dog Teddy. His review (Dad’s, not the dog’s) of my most recent essay on walking, was a doozy, including a long text about how he was thrilled that I was writing regularly and was looking forward to wading through the run-on sentences and five dollar words and obscure literary references (that’s my review, not his).

I’m glad to have one more set of eyes on these articles, too. Welcome, Pops.

And you?

Part of the point of this blog is to cultivate a group of readers, but also to engender those readers with the sense that they can and should comment on the blogging platform. Away down at the bottom, there’s a part that asks if you want to comment. Please do. You don’t have to. I don’t need you to, but I’m sure that there are some things that occur to you and I’m happy for you to share them. Heck, I’ll even fix my blog and credit you with the updates if I get something wrong. I’m always ready to think about things from your perspective and we might even have a worthy conversation.

Keep it nice, is all I ask. Leave the vitriol and snark to me (just kidding), but by all means, if you wish to, please check in! You’ll be very welcome.